


Reap Em' an Weep

by Lemonboynme



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Kravitz POV, Kravitz-centeric, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 16:31:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12346434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lemonboynme/pseuds/Lemonboynme
Summary: Who assassinates the assassin?Not once in the years since he started working under the code-name Reaper has he been handed such an ironic assignment. Being hired to assassinate yourself? Honestly, not as fun as it sounds.





	Reap Em' an Weep

It’s strange, he feels nearly disconnected from himself as he finishes the call with his contact Maureen. His stone of farspeach, warm in his hand as he stares at it as it dims, dumbfounded. Maureen Miller acts as his go between in exchange for when a hit was called out on her son, he had spared Lucas in a fit of sympathy. He didn’t regret it, mostly because she was his most efficient contact. Who would suspect a retired professor of collecting assignments for a notorious assassin called Reaper. She was also one of the few contacts he had outside the Raven Queen’s purview, so it explained why he saw his own face in a glossy 8x10 and Maureen hadn’t said a word outside their usual assignment exchange.

 

Maureen had never seen him without his mask and hood, she wouldn’t have recognized the smiling face that looked like the photo ID he had for the funeral services website. Someone wanted him dead and had hired HIM of all people to kill himself, he’s almost giggling when he dumps the rest of the info packet onto his desk.

 

Usually he prefers for Maureen to give him most of the details over the phone but his own photo had startled him out of following up like he normally did. Inside the manila envelope was 5,000 dollars cash, his hiring fee, he would be transferred the rest of the money when the job was done. His usual fee ended up being anywhere between 20,000 and 100,00 depending on the case and the client. He’s still half chuckling when his eyes skim over the client's name. His pen falls out of his hand and his good mood drops. 

 

One Taako Taaco, according to this information docket wanted his husband of five years dead. His eyes are burning as he reads on. Clearly on the page in front of him his own name stared back at him with a quick rundown of his everyday, their address, the funeral home. General things, it was cold and contained only the barest amount of information. The bastard, didn’t the elf owe him a crime of passion at the very least? Tears escaped the corners of his eyes. Still he read on, Taako wanted him killed quickly, painlessly if possible and the house staged to look like a violent break in. They wanted pictures as proof and a video if possible. A video. How could the man he loved do this?

 

He shook in his chair. What a terrible realization, he understood that this was exactly Taako’s style. Taako would rather murder him than deal with the awkwardness of the divorce he apparently wanted. They had the same friends, lived closely intertwined lives. He had kissed the elf just before he had left on a business trip for the humanitarian organization he worked for. How could things have gone so wrong so quickly? Shaking hands attuned his stone of far-speech to his mother’s personal frequency. She was, as always, pragmatic and succinct. “Give him hell”, was all the advice she gave before they hung up. Istus was always the better of the two at comforting.

 

Well, he thought as he rolled out the stiffness from his shoulders, standing from his desk in the parlor office, if Taako wanted him dead? Then the elf’s wish was his command. He closed the office, there were no funerals scheduled for the week yet and Mother would take care of it for him if they did. After all he had less than a week before his beloved husband returned home and he was expecting quite the homecoming. Best not to disappoint him then, his lips curled into a bitter snarl as he sped off to towards the home he and Taako had shared nearly 7 years. 

 

Step one was to steal a few things from his own house, usually he would do this quickly after killing the mark. Speed was normally of the essence, but now he had days to work. Taako deserved nothing less than flare and by god he’d get it. He’s snarling to himself as he plucks a few pictures from around the house, collecting things like his instruments and other valuable things whether money value or value to him. How could Taako do this?

They had been a startling whirlwind romance with Taako had chasing after him. His mother had sent him off to collect the bounty for a Merle Highchurch and while scouting the man’s life he ran into an inquisitive elf. One that infuriated him and intrigued him. Mother had called off the hit eventually when she found out that the bounty had been from a rather seedy company rather than the government fronts they usually worked with. 

 

The Raven Queen’s bounties were always Just and were sent to her through governments from all over the world, Kravitz only took outside jobs to keep his skills sharp and to help kill people who needed killing. He was all but death himself and he was foiled by a foppish elf with a gap tooth smile that was strangely alluring. 

 

He kept seeing Taako after that hit was called off and soon they were talking about houses, about getting married. He had wanted to ask Taako what he thought about kids but had been holding off since his twin sister recently reentered his life. Now they were here. He had been so in love, was till so in love despite this betrayal. Their bed feels cold when he sleeps in it for the last night. The plan, if it could be called one was to disappear, let Taako think he was dead and the job done while he took assignments that would take him far from the home he once knew with Taako. 

 

After that he had no idea, there was no way he could let this go without revealing himself as the Reaper or having the job go to someone else. And having to deal with an assassin trying to kill you? Annoying, to say the least. Taako would get what he wanted, a professional for something so personal to his that in that envelope Taako had ended his life as he knew it. Even without killing him, Taako has killed him. 

 

He’s almost gleeful the next day as he splashing his own blood, a fresh and frozen mix that would fool cops if Taako chose to get them involved rather than just reporting him missing. The reaper left nothing but blood and he’d leave as much blood as he could spare for Taako. He made a gruesome trail from their bedroom to the master bath, making sure to bloody as many things as he could manage. He was angry and that made him sloppy, he didn’t need gloves really, because he lived there his prints were already everywhere. There was a path of wreckage from their broken and carefully closed front door down the hallway and up the stairs to their bedroom.

 

The blood starts there, there's an impressive arterial spray (if he did say so himself) right next to where he had recorded his video. It was a fucking mess that was disgusting and terrifying to look at. Taako, who hated nothing more than blood would hopefully throw up, it was least he could do after having him killed. His eyes are sore from the half sincere crying he had been doing for the video. He knew that the request for a video was to confirm a dead body despite it not appearing at the scene, but this was a performance. 

 

He screamed and cried for Taako, his voice was hoarse and desperate but not loud enough for the neighbors to hear as he begged to be let go. He had faked a rather convincing choked scream as “The Reaper” had kicked him just out of camera range. A mix of makeup and left over blood made his face a mess. A busted lip and darkly bruised cheek with a heavy cut above one of his eyebrows. Real tears mixed with blood as his acting got a little too close to home as he cried for Taako and pulled hard against the zip ties binding him to the bedpost. A few minutes of editing and he had a horrific show for his loving husband. 

 

The video was set to loop on the bedroom TV while their surround sound echoed what Taako would believe were his last words. He took pictures, a timed tripod to take in his sprawl on the floor, both alive and tied to the bed and later once he had finished with the blood, laid out on the floor dead. He had ruined a suit that he knew Taako had once loved on him, the dark cold of the vest stained with so much blood and torn to pieces while it took several tries to take a decent picture with eyes staring wide and accusing into the camera. 

 

After showering and changing he helped himself to a bottle of Taako’s good wine and sent a message of job done to the burner number that had been in the file. He felt empty and hollow with grief as he listened to his own cries for help and moved the wall panel that hid the entrance to his safe room. It had a cot, dozens of guns and knives and various other ‘reaping’ tools as well as enough food and water for two weeks. 

 

Taako was supposed to arrive home tonight from the business trip but who knew when he’d come back now that he thought Kravitz was dead. Surprisingly he had only managed a small glass of wine before the front gate alarm pinged on his view screen. The grainy picture of the front door camera revealed two large men dragging someone smaller between the two of them. What in the world? He switched cameras to the entrance way one in time to hear two gruff voices laughing. 

 

“Look at that, Reaper’s been here ain't he” Both men laugh and open the broken door, the camera doesn’t pick up any sound from the person between them. Shit, what was happening? Was that Taako between them? Switching camera again to the inside hallway, there he was. 

 

Taako was limping between these two men as they growled and laughed and Taako's face seemed to be drained of all color. Oh shit, oh fucking shit he fucked up. The elf's head whipped from side to side as he took in the destruction Kravitz had wrought, his high reedy voice was panicked as he stopped and the two men had to drag them up the stairs. Kravitz switched Cameras and he could hear Taako. 

 

“No. No Gods NO.” Taako struggled violently against the two men but they held firm, he must be out of spell slots. Kravitz was suiting up, still watching the screen intently. Taako slumped when he saw the blood outside the bedroom door, he could probably pretty clearly hear the recording too even before one of the thugs opened the door.

 

“Holy SHIT, this is fucked up even for Reaper.” Kravitz flinched the the strangers loud voice and Taako crumpled, the echo of the video through the microphone made it worse. He would have to buy Taako dinner every night for the rest of his life to make up for this. 

 

“No, No, this wasn’t supposed to happen.” Taako moaned behind his hands, the thugs had dropped him where he crumpled.

 

“Shoulda said yes when the boss asked nicely the first time” The man sniffed, an ugly snort as he looked to the screen that still played his own sobbing face as he finished attaching the silencer to his gun. The Thug is still speaking as the other wonders out of the room, following the trail of blood he left to the bathroom.

 

“He’s a pretty one; he was, sorry, was a pretty one. A damn shame we had to do this. Now why don’t you rethink your stance or we’ll get in contact with Reaper again. Maybe your sister and her boy next?” Kravitz is so angry he can barely stop himself from launching himself into battle. The other calls from the other room. 

 

“Barbara! You gotta check this out! It looks like he cut the guy up in the bathtub!?” Taako moans low and anguished and collapses almost completely on the blood stained carpet. There's his chance, the panel slides silently and he prays the other stays to talk smugly to Taako. The human man admiring his handiwork in the bathroom dies with a silenced shot to the back of his head, Kravitz lowers him to the floor. The video was loud enough to cover up the noise from shot so he makes his way back to the bedroom, gun drawn. His sharp canines are exposed in the growl when he turns the corner Barbara tries to draw his own gun when he realizes that he isn’t his accomplice. Taako’s facing away but his shoulders were shaking when he turned the corner. 

 

“What, but you’re! What the heck is going on here?” Just like that Kravitz is tackling the man away from Taako and pressing the pistol to his temple as he tries to fight back. With a flick of his index finger the man is dead in their bedroom. In a second he has a handful of babbling, sobbing Taako. Taako never got like this, the elf preferred to be aloof or at least stone faced. It wasn’t hard to hold him close as his sobs reached crescendo. 

 

The sobs turned into to shuddering sighs and a repeated mantra of “Sorry”, for what Kravitz didn’t know. But he did manage to pick up Taako and carry him away from the still playing video down to the kitchen. He dragged a couch from their ruined living room and shuffled Taako onto it. Neither of them had spoken, when Kravitz had tried it was choked and terrible so he just did his best to never stop touching Taako. 

 

There in the kitchen Taako spilled all the secrets that Kravitz had been careful not to dig too deeply into. It had been a courtesy he had convinced himself was necessary for their relationship but he had craved the willful ignorance of a normal life. Which is why he never knew Taako worked for an organization that worked to retrieve and destroy dangerous magical artifacts and terrorist groups that were too powerful for regular government to take down. Or rather, groups that were supported by any number of governments for their own benefit to the detriment of innocents. In return he haltingly explained he was an assassin, trained by the Raven queen. Taako laughed and he stopped, startled and confused.

“ I know bubela” taako used the hand that wasn’t gripping Kravitz’s to swipe at his still very teary face. 

 

“That’s why I made sure the job went to Reaper when they made me make the call.They couldn’t kill Maggie when I told them I wouldn’t help them. So they wanted to punish me, wanted me to kill somebody I loved. So I picked you. I had been so sure, you aren't subtle baby and I rolled a pretty decent perception check when we met”. Taako’s ears drooped and he buried his face back into Kravitz’s sweater.

 

“I got so scared when I saw the door was kicked in, all that blood baby. I thought I got it wrong. The video. God Krav, I was so scared.” He pulled the elf closer to him with an almost crushing embrace as his own black guilt consumed him, and he let out a bitter chuckle of his own. 

 

“I’m sorry darling, truly. I’m sorry for not trusting you. It seems silly but I honestly believed you wanted me dead and I didn’t really think too hard about it” Taako patted his chest placatingly. 

 

“Don’t worry baby, I understand, you’ve always been a petty bitch. It’s why we get along so good. And to be honest, hiring an assassin to kill my husband sounds dramatic as hell and totally something I’d do.” Both of them started giggling hysterically. It hadn’t been more than twenty minutes since Kravitz had killed the gang members that had managed to catch Magnus and Taako as they tried to sneak into their base. They still had Magnus. Kravitz felt giddy with the weight of what he thought was Taako’s hate,lifted off his chest but weighed down by the news of their friend.

 

“Let’s say we go rescue magnus, love” Taako faked swooning against his chest, his smeared mascara and red eyes adding to the drama of the picture he made.

“Ooooooh I love it when you use your work accent, and we better step to it gobna” Taako’s sarcastic impression of his accent made them both snort. IT was going to be a long night of calls and possibly a dozen more kills to rescue their friend. 

“Well then, we better get to work” They kissed, laughing into each other mouths as Kravitz summoned his mask from where he had left it in the safe room. They held hands as they left for the B.O.B. headquarters, Taako calling Merle and Lucretia and a couple others. They had a rescue to plan, and the Reaper was here to take his due. Specifically for the hollow look his husband's face still held. 

This was going to be fun.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I saw this prompt on tumblr a few weeks ago and couldn't stop thinking about it, hope you like this wacky Mr. and Mr. smith type story.


End file.
